"It's so easy to hate it takes strength to be gentle and kind..." Morrissey wrote that..yea Mozza, who spits bile at all & sundry that come within his compass like a rabid cobra.But the bloke's right about it being easy to hate.Up to a point...
All fully paid up members of the human race can agree on the proper things to hate; Fascism,climate change,the new UK banknotes with the texture of the cheap wax paper bog roll you used to have to wipe your arse with at school...Y'know the big stuff.
But i'm on about football,unimportant,vacuous,infantile football.The stuff that takes up too much of our time,money & thoughts.The stuff that some say is the modern equivalent of warring nations despite there being enough wars going on to make such trite observations obsolete before the words are cold on the lips...
Football fans need rivals.If you don't have rivals to hate,and to hate you back with equal venom,there's really no point in watching football at all.Indeed there'd be no reason to have any sport.We'd may aswell call it a day and do something trivial instead like saving the planet and being nice to each other...it's rivalry that gives us our raison d'etre.Ask any football fan and the worst reaction you can get from any opposition fan is indifference to your club.Ask any Walsall fan,all they want in return for detesting Wolves with a hatred that borders on psychotic is for some of that hatred to be returned by us instead of a pat on the head with an "ah bless" condensation they normally get...the feeling of worthlessness eats at them and they have to settle for being slightly disliked by Shrewsbury instead.Like two eight year olds fighting over conkers.Not all grown up like us fourteen year olds who still think football's important...
It's not just sport of course. Rivalries are always popping up in popular culture.Beatles v Stones,Pistols v Clash,Oasis v Blur,Eastenders v Corrie,ITV v BBC etc.However these are'nt real,they're all media led cos's the media knows above all else that rivalry sells,and sex of course,that sells...sexual rivalry is the money shot that's splashed all over the front pages like a painter & decorators radio...I have never heard of anyone not playing anything by The Stones cos they like The Beatles.The rivalry is a sham,a media construct.Sometimes the protagonists play along with the conceit to help shift more units.That's show business folks...but not football.In football it's real.
Football is where grown men and women will give out eyes bulging,chin spittle, banshee screeching dogs abuse to those who support another team.Those just like them,with jobs,families,probably 2.4 kids.Loving parents who help their neighbours and donate to charity...normal people who turn into bug eyed beserkers at the sight of blue & white liveried opposition fans...it's nearly always blue & white.
And yes it does occasionally spill over into violence...i'm not passing judgement here.The world can be a violent place.Add beer with irrational hatred and you can get a nasty mix.On the other hand some people just enjoy fighting and hang their hat on supporting a football club knowing full well there will be others of their ilk in among the opponents fan base.Call it what you want but where there's rivalry of this intensity things will occasionally spill over...you only have to glance at any social media platform to see how some can't keep their emotions in check.
Luckily i am not a violent person and in truth the older i get the less hatred i feel towards my football rivals.Nowadays it's less hatred more arms folded,sit back in the easy chair, smug filled scadenfreude when we do well or they fuck up...i'm still deeply passionate about my own team of course but don't have enough to waste on the other bastards...
Oh and my hateful seven and half...in no particular order naturally.
Chelsea
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I hated them before it was fashionable to do so...when their fans do the big club in Europe thing i'm reminded of our FA cup quarter final loss to them in 94' and they pulled in 11,000 at home to Wimbledon four days after getting to the semi final...
Birmingham City
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Ah yes Blouse...Another fan base with missplaced big club bravado.Third biggest club in Birmingham if you don't include Solihull Moors...even their Yamyam insult to us backfired in spectacular fashion...can't get anything right.
West Brom
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The second biggest club in Birmingham.Our backward Black Country cousins.Consider themselves culturally our betters despite not even being a proper place...Call us Dingles which like Blouse Yamyam "insult" we have appropriated as our own,also it shows up their telly viewing habits.
Reading
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Chelsea light...Wannabes who never will be.Have a god awful ground on an industrial park by the motorway.Even their much vaunted music festival is a shite fest these days.
Wigan
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Hahahahahahahahahahah...will concede they do a good pie but nine sided dominoes? Oh come on...their windbag of an ex chairman Dave Whelen just puts the tin hat on my hatred of them.
Bolton
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Oh dear lord.Keep pushing this "Only one Wanderers" schtick like a five year old seeking attention & love from parents too busy watching Eastenders to care.Could'nt even get their ground built in their own town.
Leeds
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As the song goes "We all hate Leeds and Leeds and Leeds" This all goes back to the early 70's when i fell in with everyone else in hating them.Another ground built miles from anywhere with the choice of either getting attacked waiting for a bus or walking along the canal back to the station.There was a danger of them being loved under O'Leary but thankfully that crashed & burned...
Millwall
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Actually i don't hate Millwall.Like many other fans i just hate going there,and as i travel up from London i also hate playing them at Molineux too,every fibre of my being tells me i should detest them but...well,i can't hate a club that sold us Alex Rae.Besides playing them keeps us fans on our toes...
See what i mean about blue & white ?
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